Italian architect and ‘vertical forest’ pioneer Stefano Boeri has unveiled his design for a pair of towers in Nanjing, east China, covered by 1,100 trees and 2,500 cascading plants and shrubs. The Nanjing Green Towers complex will house a museum, a green architecture school, a private club and offices in one of the buildings, and a Hyatt hotel with rooftop pool in the other. A 20m high podium will support

German studio GMP Arkitekten have won an international competition to add a retractable roof to Verona’s first century Roman amphitheatre. City officials want to add the new roof to the historic open-air structure – which once hosted Roman sports and ceremonies, but is now primarily a concert venue – in order to better preserve the structure and protect spectators from bad weather. The design competition was launched in March 2016

The Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum and Foundation’s deputy director is to step down from his role in order to launch a new independent design studio with his brother. Ari Wiseman, who took up his role in January 2010, will start the studio with artist brother David, which will be dedicated to the creation and exhibition of projects with galleries, museums and other artists; and programmes that foster dialogue about design

Norwegian architecture firm Snøhetta has been announced as the winner of a competition to design a new hotel on Helsinki’s Hakaniemi waterfront. The decision was announced on 1 February 2017 during a press conference held by the competition organisers; the City of Helsinki, Finnish real estate company AB Invest and the Finnish Association of Architecture. The winning design is for Hilbert’s Hotel, which is named for David Hilbert’s 1924 paradoxical

Dutch design agency NorthernLight is working on the redevelopment of Sochi’s Olympic Vilage, which is turning its former media centre from the 2014 Winter Olympics into a science and art park. The redevelopment of Sirius Park, which has been at the heart of Russia’s talent development programme, will take place in two phases, ultimately becoming the country’s largest educational attraction at 50,000sq m (538,000sq ft). Phase one of development will

The Royal Institute of British Architects (RIBA) has presented Brazilian architect Paulo Mendes da Rocha with the 2017 Royal Gold Medal for architecture. Given in recognition of a lifetime’s work, the Royal Gold Medal is given to a person or group of people who have had a significant influence “either directly or indirectly on the advancement of architecture”. Da Rocha is famous for his numerous cultural buildings in Brazil, particulalry

Spanish architect and engineer Santiago Calatrava has unveiled his £1bn landmark for London’s Greenwich Peninsula – which will have a Cathedral-like winter garden at its heart. Peninsula Place is Calatrava’s first major scheme in London. As an architect famed for his monumental, city-shaping structures, the huge scale of the building – 1.4 million sq ft – is no surprise. Calatrava will transform North Greenwich Underground station into a new leisure

Twenty-five is the magic number for the long-awaited Wolf Museum of Exploration + Innovation (MOXI), which will launch on the 25 February after receiving US$25m (€23.2m, £19.8m) in capital funding. The project also took more than 25 years to complete, after being first proposed in 1990 when the Children’s Museum of Santa Barbara incorporated as a non-profit organisation. The 25,000sq ft (2,300sq m) MOXI broke ground in 2014. The signature

St Louis could become home to a purpose-built 20,000-capacity soccer stadium after a Missouri-based consortium official submitted a bid for the city to host a Major League Soccer (MLS) expansion franchise. According to the group – SC STL – the HOK-designed stadium would “complete one of the great corridors of sport, culture and entertainment”. The venue is earmarked to be situated within one mile of the Busch Stadium and Ballpark

The Municipality of Rotterdam has announced that engineering firm BAM Bouw en Techniek (BAM) has been awarded the contract for the construction of the Depot Boijmans Van Beuningen. Designed by Dutch architects MVRDV, the building will store the art collection of Museum Boijmans van Beuningen, opening it up for public use, and will provide storage facilities for private art collectors. The founders of MVRDV – Winy Maas, Nathalie de Vries

The Nanaimo Deep Discovery Association (NDDA) has showcased plans for a new CA$40m (US$30.6m, €28.5m, £24.5m) attraction in British Columbia, Canada, designed to connect people with the ocean environment and deep-sea technology. The facility, according to the NDDA, would be a unique, educational, ocean experience attracting visitors with a range of displays and activities, some static, some “virtual”, some “interactive”, and some “living”. NDDA president Lorne Hildebrand is behind the

Architecture practice Michaelis Boyd have designed an eight-storey boutique hotel in the heart of Brooklyn, described as “a sincere love song” to the industrial heritage of the New York neighbourhood. The 150-room Williamsburg Hotel has opened on the corner of Wythe Ave and North 10th St – a site once home to wooden water tower factory. Brick, glass and Corten steel have been heavily used in construction to honour the

The football association of Turkey has lifted the lid the country’s huge stadium-building drive, and how it can help the nation win the right to host the world’s biggest tournaments. Eighteen modern grounds have been constructed in the country since 2007, with a further 12 to open in the next few years and several set for completion in 2017. This is the result of a concerted push by the government

An expansive new complex for for the Zhejiang Museum of Natural History, designed by David Chipperfield Architects, has topped out in China. Set in an area of natural beauty among the forests and hills of Anji County, Zhejiang province, the museum buildings will be spread across eight low-rise pavilion buildings, the shells of which have now been completed. With a total area of 54,000sq m (581,250sq ft), the museum will

Adjaye Associates, David Chipperfield, Richard Murphy, Allies & Morrison, Barozzi Veiga and KPMB have been announced as the architects who will compete to design a multi-purpose concert hall and arts centre for Edinburgh. The high-profile shortlist has been announced by IMPACT Scotland, the charitable trust overseeing the major cultural project in the city’s St Andrew Square. In total, 69 international firms expressed interest in the project after it was announced

Luxury hotel operator Aman will open a location outside of Shanghai in Q3 2017 that is the culmination of years of restoration and conservation efforts to preserve an ancient forest and historic Ming and Qing dynasty dwellings, and is described by the company as its “most ambitious project to date.” Amanyangyun, as the retreat will be called, gets its name from the phrase ‘Yang Yun,’ meaning ‘the nourishing of clouds,’

St Moritz’s Kulm Eispavillon – which hosted the 1928 and 1948 Winter Olympics – has been restored by architecture firm Foster + Partners. After being abandoned for several years, the building has now been regenerated to host sporting events, as well as other functions. In February 2017, the venue is due to accommodate the medal ceremonies at the Ski World Championships, which are being hosted in the Swiss town. It

Architecture studio Foster + Partners have been announced as the winner of a design competition for a new luxury hotel and serviced apartments in the heart of Mecca, Saudi Arabia – Islam’s most sacred city. Over 3.7m people are estimated to travel to Mecca (known locally as Makkah) each year for the Hajj Islamic pilgrimage. The hotel project – overseen by the Jabal Omar Development Company – is a response

Design studio Amos Goldreich Architecture have completed a “dynamic and tranquil” health club in London for Xtend Barre, with the site earmarked as the American fitness brand’s first flagship European studio. Located on Marylebone High Street, the 3,000sq ft (278sq m) club is a contemporary space for Xtend Barre’s “adrenaline-fuelled” training classes – a fusion of ballet, dance and Pilates that enhance flexibility, improve balance, and challenge the core. The

Construction has begun on a large-scale public space in central Hong Kong, designed by landscape architects Gustafson Porter + Bowman, which will bring dense tropical vegetation and flowing water features to the heart of the concrete jungle. The 69,000sq ft (6,400sq m) project is being developed as part of the major HK$15bn (US$1.9bn, €1.8bn, £1.5bn) Taikoo Place scheme being overseen by Swire Properties in Quarry Bay. The developer is demolishing

Here are some of the stories that appeared on CLAD this week, from Santiago Calatrava’s mysterious billion pound London project to a beautiful new Tokyo museum by Kazuyo Sejima. Monday • Danish architects EFFEKT will convert an abandoned windmill factory in the city of Viborg into a vibrant culture house for street sports, street culture and street art. Read here. • Nobu Hospitality has revealed new design information about its

The ambitious mission of global sports architects Populous to turbocharge China’s footballing infrastructure has taken another step forward with the announcement of what will be one of the country’s biggest and best training facilities. Two years of research and planning has gone into the project, which will be located in Gu’an County, Hebei Province and used by Chinese Super League club Hebei China Fortune (CFFC) for its first team, reserves

Global architecture firm HOK have been appointed to design a permanent new home for US soccer franchise Louisville City FC. HOK will provide the vision for a 10,000-seat stadium in Kentucky’s largest city that could later expand in capacity to 20,000. The overall site plan will also include space for an office and retail development. “We’re getting closer to securing a lot in urban Louisville, and now we’re thinking about

The shortlisted designs for a £40m (US$50m, €47m) national Holocaust memorial and learning centre in London have today (27 January) gone on public display, revealing how the ten competing teams have responded to the brief for an emotionally powerful and sensitively designed monument. The international design competition was launched by the UK Holocaust Memorial Foundation in September 2016. Ninety-two teams entered, and this was narrowed down to a final ten

Situated in Tokyo’s business district, the latest offering from hotel and resort operator Hoshinoya Resorts, Hoshinoya Tokyo, features a spa and top floor natural hot spring. Designed by Azuma Architect & Associates and created by large-scale construction specialists Mitsubishi Jisho Sekkei, the 17-storey, 84 room hotel is the city’s first luxury ryokan (traditional Japanese inn), offering traditional Japanese culture combined with high-level hospitality. Each floor of the hotel replicates a

A Danish science museum dedicated to celebrating curiosity has reopened today (26 January), wowing visitors with a 100m (328ft) long twisting copper staircase and walls that are partly built using recycled beer cans. The Experimentarium opened in the town of Hellerup in 1991, but its original home was largely destroyed in 2015 when initial expansion work had already taken place. The design brief of architecture studio CEBRA, who won the

A Danish science museum dedicated to celebrating curiosity has reopened today (26 January), wowing visitors with a 100m (328ft) long twisting copper staircase and walls that are partly built using recycled beer cans. The Experimentarium opened in the town of Hellerup in 1991, but its original home was largely destroyed in 2015 when initial expansion work had already taken place. The design brief of architecture studio CEBRA, who won the